


The motives of the Wolf

by Jackeline Harkness (Jackeline_Harkness)



Category: Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, M/M, Reminiscing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-09
Updated: 2014-01-09
Packaged: 2018-01-08 01:57:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1127044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jackeline_Harkness/pseuds/Jackeline%20Harkness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Obadiah Stane had Tony Stark assassinated. But he has his reasons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The motives of the Wolf

**Author's Note:**

> This story was titled after Ruben Dario's poem. If you haven't read it, I recommend you do it. It's originally in Spanish, but there's a few good translations around, though the rhyme is lost.
> 
> I honestly don't know where this came from. I don't even like Obie... except in here, I guess?  
> Even more than in my regular writing, I'll be forever grateful for your comments. Thanks for reading!

**The motives of the Wolf.**

“So… you’re not going to make it for Kim’s party?”

“No, I don’t think I will.”

The woman, the girl, at the other side of the line sighed, trying to mask her exasperation.

“I know this has been really hard on you and all. But you working yourself to death won’t bring him back.”

Obadiah Stane pinched the bridge of his nose.

“We don’t know that he’s dead” and he didn’t have to fake the almost anguished tone of his voice.

“Obie, it’s been…”

“No. We’re not talking about it until we have hard proof of… of anything.”

“I understand, but…”

“I gotta go”, he said as only warning before hanging up on his fourth wife. Taking a deep breath, he steeled himself and made his way to the only place on Earth where he still felt almost at home. He stopped just a couple of steps away from the headstone, the lush grass, pearled with water drops like tiny diamonds, made the soles of his shoes get cold stupidly fast, as if to remind everyone who dared step on it that only death rested beneath.

“She understands, she says.” He barked a short, bitter laugh. “She’s not even thirty. And you know that type you always liked? Idealistic and brilliant and classy and with more balls than four guys put together? Well, she’s the exact opposite. You’d disapprove so damn much. You’d say that I outdid myself, and you’d be damn right. Being arm candy and a bed warmer can’t be that hard a job… you’d think she could do it with a little more skill. Well, she doesn’t. How can she understand anything, when even I don’t?”

The cold, polished stone returned him his reflection. Who was that tired failure of an old man with bags under his eyes and not a single dark hair left on his head?

“Fuck it all, how did things ever get so bad?” and he covered the two steps that separated him from the carved marble, as if pressing his fingers to it could lessen the prickling sensation in his eyes. “We were doing so good back then. The world was ours, we were kings amongst men. We only needed to be discrete and get us a pair of pretty brood mares. Maria and Diane were so much more than that. They were perfect. So good at PR and pretty and even intelligent… and good at keeping secrets.”

He ran his fingers over the black stone which his whole damn life had been reduced to.

“Too bad the brats didn’t play their part. I’m not justifying Ezekiel… you know I’d never do it. But at least he’s keeping himself out of the way, being mostly an embarrassment just to himself. Tony, though…”

He had to swallow the lump in his throat before he could continue.

“He’s…  I failed. I failed you with him. That night…”

It was hard to think about it. Even twenty years later, he remembered to perfection seeing Tony in the tabloids, wilder than ever, and knowing that Howard was going to simply lose his shit. He remembered rubbing his face and then resting his forehead on his hands until the stone in his ring was warm. He remembered thinking that maybe he should go and try to keep Howard from making things worse by shouting at people instead of just buying their silence under the table.

He remembered the phone call.

 _We’ll work it out. I’ll make sure everything’s alright_ , he’d said, and Howard had been so mad he could almost hear him shaking with rage over the phone.

  _I’ll take care of it and I won’t let him drag the name of Stark through the mud anymore_ , he’d sworn, and Howard had snorted in disbelief and hung up on him.

And that was the last time he ever heard his voice. He remembered how he’d sounded, the anger making his voice colder and a lot steadier than it had any right to be with the amounts of alcohol in his veins. It had been the most beautiful sound in the world, all that power perfectly turned into simple sound waves.

“Remember how I used to tell you it was your fault for trying to rein him in too tightly? Well, you can forget it and all the other shit I ever told you about him. I had my own go at trying to shape him into a better man, into a prince worth of our empire. And I somehow messed it up. You were always the brilliant one. I was only ever a support for you. On my own…”

On his own, he couldn’t do anything. Oh, he had maintained the company from sinking despite Tony’s recklessness and his outright disdain for the work of their lives, but just barely. He hadn’t been able to contain the damage Tony did to their reputation, to the company, to their legacy.  The boy was simply too wild. It was like trying to contain a nuclear blast with your bare hands. Not even his parents’ death had tempered him. He had just attended the funeral and gone back to whoring and partying, as if it didn’t matter. Some people had suggested that maybe that was what the heavy drinking was about, but he knew better. Tony had been drinking himself to death since years before he caused a war pilot and most experienced driver Obie knew to crash his car. He’d been committing a slow suicide since his teen years, and he didn’t seem happy to go alone. Oh, no, the great Tony Stark had to take half the world with him before he died, the beautiful bastard.

“You know what I did. God, it would’ve been a thousand times easier if he didn’t look so much like you. I would’ve done it years ago, when I saw that he was a lost cause. I’m so sorry, Howard. I couldn’t keep the last promise I made to you… so at least, this way, he’ll stop ruining everything. We can at least leave the kingdom standing for the future.”

He bit his lip, hard. He let go after a moment, and the dull pain reminded him of that time Howard had bitten him. He’d been drunk on success and excitement and plans and expensive scotch and he’d pulled him into a too-enthusiastic kiss.

“You bastard”, he smiled, bitterly, at the memory. “That fucking hurt.” And, as he tried to force himself to leave, to go back to the world, he couldn’t decide if he meant the bite or the wound that had never stopped bleeding after his only love’s death.


End file.
